


Grief Protocol

by orphan_account



Series: More Beautiful for Having Been Broken [3]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 13:43:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10164248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Written for the tumblr prompt:General Sanver (Established): After 2x14 (AU version of course, bc obvious), Alex prepares to turn to her old vice. Astra and Maggie come in to help.





	

Maggie and Astra’s phones both pinged at the same time.  They took them out and looked at the screens.  It was Alex.  All the message said was, _It went badly._ **  
**

A safe rule of thumb with Alex was that the more terse she was, the more wrecked she was inside.  Astra and Maggie both understood this about her by now.  Astra thought for half a moment.

“I will go find her,” she said.  “You should make the place ready.”

Maggie nodded.

This meant a number of things.  Maggie had to remove anything even remotely alcoholic, which included even the nasty grocery store cooking wine in the fridge that nobody in their right mind would try to actually drink.  She needed to run a bath, and ready a meditation space.  It was too chilly of an evening for Alex to reasonably meditate on the deck, so she’d set up a space inside with the big pillow Alex liked and her lanterns and some soft lighting.  

They’d only needed this protocol a few times, because Alex had done well since getting out of rehab, but they knew it well enough.  And they knew that when Alex became taciturn, it meant that this was probably necessary.  So Maggie got to the business of getting their home ready, and Astra took to the sky to locate their girl, who they feared was in danger of seeking out a bottle.  And they didn’t even know why, yet.

Astra closed her eyes and listened for Alex’s heartbeat.  She winnowed her hearing down, and down, trying to locate its familiar rhythm among the sounds of the world.  When she found it, she sped off in its direction, hoping that she would get there before anything too catastrophic occurred.  

She found Alex sitting on a log in the woods about fifteen miles from their apartment.  Her sidearm lay at her feet and she had clearly been in tears.  Astra descended lightly through the canopy of trees and alighted on the soft ground, with its cover of dead leaves and pine needles.  She placed a hand on Alex’s cheek and said nothing, waiting for her to speak.

It took several minutes before she did.

“Astra ….”  she began in a low, shaky voice.  “He’s…. Jeremiah… he’s not my father anymore.”

Astra shifted closer, and drew Alex into her arms.  She could feel her human’s labored breathing, the tremors of grief that rumbled away through her limbs, her chattering jaw.  She stroked Alex’s hair, and waited for her to continue.

“He’s a … a thing, a CADMUS monster.”

Astra held her tighter.

“I…I should have stopped him… I should have done my duty…. But… I couldn’t.”  Alex began to weep now, and Astra felt the hot tears soaking through the shoulder of her shirt.  “After I killed you, I couldn’t stand the thought of having to kill someone I loved again.  I couldn’t do it, even though he’s not the man I knew anymore….”  And then she dissolved into sobs.

Astra held her for a few minutes, let her tremble and cry.  “You are still my brave one,” she whispered.  “Even the bravest have moments where they look their duty in the face and say, _I am sorry, but I cannot_.”

She lifted Alex up into her arms, and stood up, cradling her limp form weighted down with all her weapons and kevlar and grief.  She looked up at the moon throwing shadows across the pale of her human’s face.  

“Astra…” Alex whispered.  “I need…”

“You need to go home,” Astra said with gentle firmness.  “And I am taking you there.”

“I want…”  she began.

“You want to go home.  Maggie and I have prepared things for you.  We have removed even the cooking wine from the house.  You will have a warm bath and meditate and then Maggie and I will comfort you, any way you wish.”

“But I need….”

“You need love.”  Astra lifted them off the ground, gliding through the treetops and into the sky.  They drifted over the woods toward home.  “You do not need to drink, Alex.  Maggie and I will help you to remember this.  You do not need wine.  You need empathy.  You need to be held and told that none of this is your fault.”

Alex surrendered, and buried her face in Astra’s chest as they floated home.

Maggie was ready  for them when they arrived.  The lights were low, the smell of brewing chamomile tea permeated the space, and it was quiet.  Astra set Alex down on the couch and she and Maggie carefully peeled her out of her body armor, disarmed her, and then got her out of her sweaty clothes.  Maggie brought her favorite bathrobe, the thick white one, and wrapped it around her.  She and Astra positioned themselves on either side of Alex and held her while she intermittently wept.

When she was ready, Astra carried her to the bath.  After settling her in the tub, Maggie gently washed her hair the way Alex liked, and then let her soak for a few minutes while she stepped outside and Astra told her what had happened.

Maggie winced, almost physically feeling Alex’s pain.  “I think we should call Rosensweig,” she decided softly, referring to Alex’s rock star therapist.

Astra nodded.  “Let her meditate first, and then we should suggest it.”

Maggie agreed.  They needed to get her out of crisis first.

Astra pulled her, dripping, from the tub.  Maggie wrapped a towel around her and gently dried her as she lay, barely moving, in Astra’s arms.  They brought her back out to the couch and Maggie wrapped her in her bathrobe again while Astra went and changed out of her wet shirt.  She couldn’t look at either of them.  Astra knew she was grieving but also was ashamed, that she had failed to do her duty, that she was so wrecked by what she felt.  

They would bring her back.

Maggie coaxed Alex down onto the cushion on the floor, and she sat.  Maggie sat on the floor in front of her, holding both her hands.

“I don’t want to meditate,” she whispered.  “I don’t want to be in my body right now.”

“There’s nowhere else for you to be,” Maggie said softly, and tucked an errant lock of Alex’s dark hair behind her ear.

Astra came and pulled the bathrobe off Alex’s shoulders.  She then settled behind her, took off her own shirt, and pressed her skin to Alex’s.  “Be in our bodies, then,” she told her, and reached around Alex’s waist to grasp Maggie’s wrists.  Together, they held her up.

After a moment, they heard Alex’s breathing slow.  She was trying.  She was centering herself, with the breath she shared with the two of them.  Astra and Maggie both modulated their own breathing to be in in sync with hers.  She was leaning on their strength to keep upright and slowly, letting herself be part of the world.  It was a world that included Jeremiah as he was now, but it was also a world that included Maggie and Astra, and it was a world in which Alex could face her grief without turning to the drinking that was hurting her before.

It was not such a bad world, despite the grief she felt now.  They softly murmured in her ear, reminded her that she was loved and needed, that Kara loved her, Eliza loved her, J’onn loved her.  And then they fell quiet, and simply stayed with her, allowing her to breathe everything, and breathing along with her.  They stayed this way for a long time.

Alex opened her eyes after a time, and leaned back against Astra.  Maggie dropped a soft kiss on Alex’s forehead.  “Want some tea?”

Alex nodded.

Maggie brought her a cup, and covered her up again with the bathrobe.  She took an afghan off the couch and wrapped it around both Astra and Alex, and then resumed her position sitting in front of Alex, holding her free hand while she drank.

“You should call Rosensweig,” Maggie said.

Alex nodded.  “But not now.  I just want to go to bed now.  I’ll call her in the morning.”

That was good.  She wanted to go to bed.  It meant that she was wrung out, that she had no more grieving to do tonight.  It meant that they had gotten her past the crisis and that she would not try to drink now.  They would need to be vigilant in the coming days, because they knew it would take time to process what she had gone through tonight, and she might have moments where she wanted to retreat, wanted to be taken out of her body and the grief it felt.  But they would be there.  She would have them to hold her up and share her breath and help shoulder her sadness.

It was not a bad world, after all.


End file.
